Monday, July 26, 2010

Not much going on

Title says it all..not much going on in golf or poker. My golf game is really not very good at the moment. I am having a hard time with motivation to grind out practice time, etc. I used to be a range rat and would hit a ton of balls and practice in general but that is not happening this summer. There are any number of reasons for this (family, being away for much of June, the crazy heat the last week or two) but bottom line: a lack of preparation is not a recipe for good results. I am going to take a lesson this week and see if I can find a few things to concentrate on working on. Perhaps that will help light a fire under me as I do have a few events over the next 4-6 weeks.

Poker has been pretty quiet as well. Playing a little on-line though not a ton. I did play in the first heat of a WSOP league on Friday night. Basically a friend of mine has organized a WSOP league for the last few years. Essentially there are 20 guys in the league. Once a month we play a heat and the top 10 get points based on their finish. You are entitled to throw out your worst 2 finishes and your top 10 scores are aggregated. At the end the top 3 point finishers in the league are bought into the WSOP Main Event 2011. This past Friday I finished 4th of the 20 so that was a good start. Basically in these types of events my feeling is that consistently high finishes will be important though a few firsts or seconds sprinkled in will probably be important as well. Our next heat is August 20th.

I probably won't play any casino poker for a while. The Borgata has 2 August poker events but I don't see myself getting up there for those. The thought of living in a casino for a few days is not particularly appealing at the moment. The next time I will likely get up there will be in September for the WPT Borgata Open. I haven't sat down with my wife to finalize the schedule but my intended events are below in bold:

Borgata Poker Open 2010

Wed Sept 8 Event 1 11am $350 + $50 Deep St 25,000 2 day 40 min

Thu Sept 9 Event 2 11am $200 + $30 DS T 2R NLH 25,000 1 day 15min

Fri Sept 10 Event 3 11am $500 + $60 NL H 12,000 2 day 40min

Fri Sept 10 Event 4 12pm $350 + $50 PLO 10,000 1 day 30 min


Sat Sept 11 Event 5 11am $1000 + $90 NL H 15,000 2 day 50/60 min

Sat Sept 11 Event 6 12pm $250 + $30 NL H 10,000 1 day 30 min

Sun Sept 12 Event 7 11am $350+ $50 DS DS NL H 25,000 2 day 40 min

Sun Sept 12 Event 8 12pm $200 + $30 Ladies 10,000 1 day 30 min

Mon Sept 13 Event 9 11am $350+ $50 DS Turbo 2R 25,000 1 day 15 min

Mon Sept 13 Event 10 1pm $350 + $50 Omaha H/L 10,000 1 day 30 min

Tue Sept 14 Event 11 11am $2000 + $150 Heads Up DE 20,000 2 day 20 min

Tue Sept 14 Event 12 12pm $300 + $50 NL H 15,000 1 day 30 min

Wed Sept 15 Event 13 11am $170+30 2R 100K G NLH 10,000 1 day 30 min

Thu Sept 16 Event 14 11am $1500 + $150 NL H 20,000 2 day 60 min

Fri Sept 17 Event 15 11am $1000 + $90 Six Max 15,000 1 day 40 min


Sat Sept 18 Event 16A 11am $3300 + $200 WPT Champ. Day 1A 30,000 5 day 75 min

Sun Sept 19 Event 16B 11am $3300 + $200 WPT Champ. Day 1B 30,000 5 day 75 min

Sun Sept 19 Event 17 12pm $500 + $60 NL H 15,000 1 day 30 min

Mon Sept 20 Event 16 11am $3300 + $200 WPT Championship **** Day 2 75 min

Mon Sept 20 Event 18 12pm $350 + $50 NL H 10,000 1 day 30 min

Tue Sept 21 Event 16 11am $3300 + $200 WPT Championship **** Day 3 75 min

Tue Sept 21 Event 19 12pm $300 + $50 NL H 10,000 1 Day 30 min

Wed Sept 22 Event 16 11am $3300 + $200 WPT Championship **** Day 4 75 min

Wed Sept 22 Event 20 12pm $200 + $30 NL H 10,000 1 Day 30 min

Thu Sept 23 Event 16 4pm $3300 + $200 WPT Championship **** Day 5 WPT FT

I might throw in another event or two (most likely one of the medium buy-in events) but I have to get with my wife to figure out what will work given work, kids schedules, school, etc.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

This guy is a joker

I know Phil Hellmuth has 11 bracelets but what a joke he has become. Here is his entrance to the WSOP ME from this year.



It almost looks like even he is embarrassed by this nonsense.

Funny thing is even he thinks he can play high stakes cash games. What a joke. Every time he gets at a table with Durrr or Patrik Antonious or any number of other players he looks completely overmatched. Here is a laughable hand where he is completely schooled by Dwan. I love it...stay with it because the end is priceless:





Dwan knows he is ahead once Phil tanks but when he calls he has to be a little worried that he is outkicked. Yeah not so much.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Winding up in Vegas

Tomorrow I head home from a rather disappointing trip out here to WSOP. I really wanted to play the ME but a run of bad cards and bad beats kept that from happening. I guess will have to wait for another year.

I moved on Friday from the Rio over to the Venetian just because the Rio was dying now that all of the events other than the ME have finished. Plus the Rio basically sucks with shitty food choices and out of the way location. The Ventian is the Bomb with huge suites and a great poker room and food selections. Not sure why i stay anywhere else actually.

I did play another tournament at Venetian on Thursday and found another beauty. I had chipped up from our starting 12k stack to about 20k in chips. There was a rather retarded player 2 to my left who was calling and betting basically any hands and was impossible to read. So at 300/600/75 it was folded around to me on the button and I raised to 1600 with AQ. Mr. "I don't fold" called and we took a flop of QJJ. He led at the pot for 1500 and I decided to just call pretty sure I was ahead. This guy played like a lot of bad players in that he tried to "trap" with his big hands and bet when he was unsure or bluffing. So my expectation was that he would have checked if he held a J. Turn was a 2 and he checks now. I am 95% sure I am good, perhaps up against another Q. So I bet 4k, he min raises to 8k and I shove my remaining stack. He calls and tables KQ and the river is....K. So that left me like 2k and the next hand I had A6 and shoved and was called by KT and lost. Out again with nothing but a bad beat story.

Thankfully the cash games have offset the losses to some extent and last night I chopped a $200 daily HORSE tournament at Binions. That was a nice little event though I have to say Binions is slightly stuck in the 1950s. Binions is down in old Downtown Vegas far from the glitz of the Strip. Stuff is generally less expensive and a bit seedier than the Strip. Well this obviously means that the customer base is a little, shall we say, less sophisticated than the Strip. I would equate these people to the crowds on a Saturday night on the Ocean City, MD boardwalk. That is to say a hell of a lot of tatoos and body piercings, an apparent lack of interest in personal hygiene and a need to get shitfaced drunk. The casino itself is pretty gross with cheap tables and an odd stench that permeates the area. The poker area is pretty funny and basically looks like a poker room in someones basement. But whatever HORSE is fun and with abt 100 players and only a $200 buy-in it was a nice break from grinding out another NLHE tournament. At one point I was down to 4k in chips (started with 15k) at 400/800 limits. But I won a Holdem hand with KJ and then went on a pretty nice heater up to like 50k. We got to the bubble and I was the shortstack with 40k or so. I then won a triple up hand in the Stud 8 or better round with (26)624A(K) when my 2 pair held. Few minutes later I was suddenly up to 160k when I won another Stud 8 hand. The game then switched to Holdem and a beauty came up. I raised the button with JJ when a well known and successful pro 3 bet me. I called and the flop came Jxx. he led and I knew he had AA or KK. So I reraised, he 3 bet, I 4 bet, he 5 bet and I set him in (limits were 8k on the flop). He tabled AA and I held to get up over 200k. Few hands later we were at the final table and I was raising a lot of hands as the 2nd chip leader. The chip leader was an aggressive internet player who I expected to spew off chips somewhere which is just what he did. We got 3 handed pretty much even though I was slightly ahead. A deal was struck since the blinds were stupid high and the tournament effectively became bingo. I got about $300 more than I should based on the chip counts so I took the deal and locked up the profit.

Today I decided not to play any tournaments as I just woke up too late and didn't want to rush down to the poker room without chilling out for a bit.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Looking less likely I will play WSOP ME

I played more satellites today to get into the ME and unforunately the cards are just not being kind. In addition to the AA < AK hand I described above I have a multitude of other shitty beats. Here is a sampling:

$1k Single Table Satellite

Played big pots with 3 hands at this: First-My AA loses to TT all in pre-flop; Second-AA loses to 77 though thankfully 77 had very few chips; and Third-AKss runs into a button raisers AA. Obv I don't suck out. But in spite of this I somehow finished 3rd and got my $1k buy-in back when we did a smallish deal 3 handed.

$1k Mega Satellite

I raise TT at 25/50 and get 3 bet to 400...I call. Flop 239 and I check call 600. Turn is 8 and action is check-check. River is 3 and I check call 1500 to see 23. Guess I could have lost more. Hang around 3-4k in chips when I decide to play a big pot with 55. Raiser opens for a min raise to 400 at 100-200. I know Mr. 23 is going to re-raise so I just call. Sure enough he raises, original raiser folds and I ship it in. He calls with AQ. Looks like I might hold but obv river is an A and I am out.

$500 Single Table

Not a satellite per se but can use the chips won to offset the cost obviously. Anyway, get down to 3 handed from original 10 and I shove 12BB on the button holding 77. BB has me covered and tanks for like 5 mins and says "OK I'll gamble with you" and shows me AK. Not sure if he was a douchebag or was really thinking about it. Anyway he obv wins the coin-flip and I am out in 3rd.

I did win a little bit in a sexy 5 card 5-10 PLO Hi-Low game. Was up like 1k at one point but gradually drifted down until I had booked a few hundred dollar winning session. Also chopped a smaller single table satellite that I really didn't want to chop three handed but one of the players was a good friend of mine and the other was basically giving me too much equity that I simply couldn't pass up.

Will likely play 1 more mega satellite tomorrow but if I don't get through I don't think the Main Event is going to happen this year. Although I am sure I am +EV in that event the buy-in is still 10k which is a lot of dough and I am just not going to break the bank to play in it. I have some investors for the Series and while that helps defray my exposure I am still pretty significantly exposed on my own if I were to buy in and just can't do that. But there are other smaller buy-in events around town I can play in if I don't get in the Main.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Bad start to WSOP Trip #2

Got in yesterday and played some cash for a pretty much breakeven 2 hour session. At 9 I played the Mega-Satellite for the Main Event. Relatively inactive due to shitty cards. Literally played 3 hands.

Final hand raised AA to 1600 at 300/600/75. BB then put it all in covering my ~7500 chips. I call obviously to see AK and board runs out KK587. Good times.